Christian-Jewish Relations:
History & Overview

by Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein

What is the Most Important Thing Christians
Should Know About Jews and Jews About Christians?

I am frequently asked, "What are some of the
common stereotypes and misconceptions Jews have of Christians and
Christians have of Jews?" At times the question is posed
differently such as, "What is the single most important item
Christians should know about Jews and Jews should know about
Christians?" In either case, my response is the same.

For the most prevalent misconception Christians
and Jews have of one another, and the single most important thing
they should learn is how members of the other community define
themselves. The fact is that Jews tend to define the term
"Christian" in an entirely different manner than Christians
themselves do. Likewise, the Christian conception of who is a Jew is
often at variance with the way Jews, themselves, characterize their
identities.

Christians and Jews are so far apart in their
understanding of one another that they misjudge the very core of each
other's identities. It is only reasonable, therefore, to suggest that
the starting point for both communities is to learn the other's self
definition. For if we skip this initial step, Christians and Jews
will continue to talk past each other without ever understanding
where the other is coming from.

Incidents in which they will accuse one another of
intolerance and insensitivity will, no doubt, increase when, in fact,
the root of the problem may not have been a deliberate provocation or
intentional slight, but a distorted view of who is a Christian and
what is a Jew. Instead of stopping and learning how the other group
defines itself, we tend to transpose our definitions of ourselves and
the categories of experience we are most familiar with, unto others.
We assume that what is true of ourselves, Particularly the way we
define our identities, must be true of others, as well.

It may come as a surprise for Christians to learn,
for example, that Jews tend to view most non-Jews as Christians
(except, of course, those who are Moslems, Buddhists, or members of
another specific religion). Jews are by and large unaware that
Christianity is not something you are born into but a faith one
personally and consciously accepts. Moreover, they are not familiar
with the differences among the various Protestant denominations and,
to a lesser extent, those between Catholics and Protestants. It is
much easier for them and, indeed, for all outsiders, to simply lump
American gentiles together as "Christians", without
distinguishing among them.

How Do Jews Define Themselves?  Part I

We saw that Christians and Jews are largely
ignorant of each other's true identities and that they can, as a
result, be led to distortions and stereotypes. In the process of
generalizing due to ignorance, they transpose their own categories of
belief and view of their identity, unto others. While Christianity is
a faith a person accepts, being Jewish is something we are born into.

Every child born of a Jewish mother is, willy
nilly, Jewish, a member of the Jewish community. There are black Jews
and white Jews, Orthodox and Reform, Hassidic and even secular and
agnostic Jews. There are good Jews and bad Jews, indeed, all types of
Jews; all sharing a common history, peoplehood, and even destiny. And
so, when a person is born into this Jewish community, even if he
strays from it, he remains a member of that group. Being Jewish,
therefore, is not so much accepting a faith system as is true with
Christians, but being part of a covenanted community and peoplehood
that one enters into at birth.

To be sure, being Jewish hopefully includes a
commitment to the Jewish faith which is at the core of our system and
community. But, much like people born in America, who are American
citizens, even though they may not profess strong nationalist fervor,
so, too, Jews born into this covenantal community, whatever their
beliefs and despite their differences, they remain part of the Jewish
peoplehood.

Of course, it is possible for a person to
not only turn his back on his faith and community, but to actively
work against its best interests, much like the American who commits
treason against his nation. In such circumstances, we might say of
such people that they are renegades or "bad Jews" but they
remain Jews nonetheless. I should point out that there are Rabbinic
and secular Jewish authorities who make one exception to this view,
that is in the case of a Jew who not only abandons Judaism but
actually accepts another religion upon himself. In such a situation,
these authorities maintain, the individual forfeits his Jewish
identity and membership in the community in favor of his having
joined another faith and community.

How Do Jews Define Themselves?  Part II

We learned that Jews define themselves as such by
being born to a Jewish mother. Despite this concept, however, Jews
are not a race. For anyone who accepts the Jewish faith and goes
through a conversion process can become Jewish, part of the Jewish
peoplehood. However, as we will see, this is not something Judaism
strives for, and we, therefore, do not have any missionary outreaches
toward non-Jews. For Judaism affirms that one need not adopt the
Jewish faith or become Jewish to achieve salvation.

The Christian can achieve salvation or, as we Jews
prefer to call it, redemption, through their Christian faith itself.
For Judaism, unlike classical
Christianity, is what is called a non-exclusivist religion, meaning
that it is the redemptive faith system for Jews. However, Judaism
maintains that ethical monotheistic systems like Christianity and
Islam can also bring salvation for gentiles.

Be this as it may, I should point out that the
liberal Jewish Reform movement, representing approximately 25% of the
Jewish community, and which we will share more about in the future,
recently adopted the novel concept of "patrilineal
descent," meaning that if either the mother or the father is
Jewish, the child is Jewish, as well. Furthermore, the conversion
process under Reform auspices is a much more lenient one than that
required by the Orthodox or Conservative denominations and which, in most instances, would not be viewed as
acceptable by them.

We have also seen that Jews view themselves not
only as members of a faith system, but as part of a peoplehood,
culture, civilization, nation and more. This self definition,
however, is quite different from the way Christians define
themselvesnamely, as individuals who accepted a faith system for
their lives. It should come as no surprise, therefore, to learn that
Jews will likely transpose their definitions of themselves unto
Christians, and the reverse, so that when Christians search out the
Jew, they seek the Jew of faith only, and when Jews look for the
Christian, they see him as every non-Jew who is not a member of
another faith.

What Are Some Of The
Distorted Views Jews and Christians Have Of Each Other's Identities?

I have often heard Christians remark about Jews
who may be secular or agnostic, that such people are not "really
Jews." Such comments reflect their own transposed Christian
definitions unto Jews and a great ignorance as to how we Jews define
ourselves, as well. For in our system, these people may not be
religiously faithful or observant, and I am not condoning that, but
they remain members of the Jewish community. They may not represent
the "ideal", but they are full-fledged Jews, nonetheless.

Similar kinds of distortions arise in the reverse,
namely, in the Jewish misconceptions of Christians. Jews will often
accuse Christians of anti-Semitism,
when perhaps only one group or denomination may have been guilty.
Indeed, given that Jews regard all non-Jews as Christians, even
atheists and "cultural Christians" similar to the way they
regard all Jews as Jews, they may even accuse "Christians"
of anti-Semitism because of the deeds or views of people who are
actually non-Christians.

Jews are totally unaware that some conservative
Christians define the term "Christian" so narrowly as to
actually exclude their Catholic and liberal Protestant
coreligionists. Jews would have a difficult time accepting thisit
would come as a real shock that they might not easily or readily
grasp. For in the Jewish system, those whom we feel do not correctly
represent our views we might call bad Jews or irreligious Jews. But
they are Jews nonetheless, because we are all part of the same
peoplehood.

So, too, when the Jew views the Pentecostal, the
Baptist and the Roman Catholic, he sees them all calling out and
praying to the Father in the name of Jesus Christ. The cross, for
them all, is the central symbol of faith and Jesus' death and
resurrection is their shared cardinal belief. To the Jew, who
certainly is an outsider, all Christians are part of what we Jews
call a peoplehood and what Christians refer to as, "The body of
Christ."